Oceanside looking for help setting goals

OCEANSIDE  Oceanside is looking for a facilitator to help the City Council set goals that could guide the city in coming years.

The city on July 5 published a request for bids from potential workshop leaders who would be tasked with assisting the council in setting priorities and objectives before the 2013-2014 budget year, which begins next July.

The meetings would be held in several locations throughout the city, and would be designed to gather comments from the public and allow the elected officials to discuss short-term and long-term ideas for Oceanside.

Such meetings are common for city governments, but the decision on whether to search for a facilitator was contested at a June 27 City Council meeting.

The five-member council is ideologically divided, leaving most votes on even slightly controversial matters with a 3-2 split. Councilmen Jerome Kern, Gary Felien and Jack Feller form a voting majority, and Mayor Jim Wood and Councilwoman Esther Sanchez vote in the minority.

Wood said hiring a facilitator would waste money, because the person would likely not get the council to agree on anything.

“Nobody is going to change the voting position of this council, probably,” Wood said. “We certainly don’t have money for that. We’re not going to agree, and that’s just it.”

Kern said the facilitated workshops would simply be a time to plan and would be useful for getting through the next five years.

“This always brings me back to that saying that failure to plan is planning to fail, and we’ve been limping along here in the last few years as the economy has shifted underneath our feet,” Kern said. “We really do need to set priorities and set a course for this city for a minimum of five years.”

He pointed to goals that have emerged from workshops in the past, such as generating water locally through water reclamation or desalting.

Sanchez said hiring a facilitator would cut into other city expenditures, and she said she didn’t think the council majority would listen to the public.

“Which program are we going to cut to be able to do that? … What library program are we going to cut hours from?” she said. “You’ll give the people time to come and speak and then you’re going to go and do whatever you want, anyway. ...

I hear time and time again ‘That council doesn’t listen to us.’”

Felien disagreed.

“I don’t like the idea in this city that we attribute sinister motives to everything we try to get done here,” Felien said. “This allows the very public input that people claim they don’t get.”

The council voted 3-2 in the June meeting to look for a facilitator.

Community activist Diane Nygaard said if a workshop is held it should be delayed until after the November election. Three seats are up for re-election, those of Wood, Feller and Sanchez. Kern is challenging Wood from a safe seat in the mayoral race.

Responses from prospective administrators are due by 5 p.m. Aug. 2. City Manager Peter Weiss said at the council meeting that proposals likely wouldn’t come before the City Council until September.